And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts This book has just about everything I like in a non-fiction. It’s got science, medicine, high stakes, historical significance, and modern relevance. Trying to figure out why it wasn’t more compelling to me, I had to look no further than the …
Category: Book Review
Jul 11
Book Review: The Jungle
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair I have a tendency to be easily swayed by arguments, so I asked a well-read friend for an antidote to Ayn Rand’s ATLAS SHRUGGED. She suggested this book. If I ever get that wish where you get to resurrect people and have them at a dinner party, I’m going to …
Jul 03
Book Review: Trash Sex Magic
Trash, Sex, Magic by Jennifer Stevenson I bought this book primarily because of the publisher; they’ve done some other novels by Sean Stewart that I liked very much. I was hoping (in vain, I thought) that this novel would have the same heart and detail as Stewart’s books. I knew it was crazy to think …
Jun 19
Book Review: The Believing Brain
The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths by Michael Shermer Even though this book is about beliefs, it has a huge whopping load of science, especially neurology and psychology. It doesn’t address specific beliefs so much as describe how people form conjectures …
Jun 04
Book Review: 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense
13 Things That Don’t Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time by Michael Brooks I got this as an audiobook, and I almost stopped listening to it because it begins with astrology and goes straight to quantum physics–my two least favorite fields of science. My friend advised me to continue listening, and …